4 ms·

Whoever at Netscape vetoed Scheme as the browser language should be on trial in The Hague.

by gadtfly 10y ago

msvan 10y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2784453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2784453
kazinator 10y ago
The short story has it that it was some Java-pushing dickheads from Sun Microsystems.
- kazinator 10y ago
  You may dislike my tone, but it is basically factual. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9098367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9098367 Eich> I joined Netscape on April 4, 1995, to "do Scheme in the browser". Immediately I was out of luck on several fronts: Eich> [...] Eich> If there was to be a "scripting language", it had to look like Java. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2786720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2786720 Eich> Remember, I was recruited to "do Scheme", which felt like bait and switch in light of the Java deal brewing by the time I joined Netscape.
  - LyndsySimon 10y ago
    Cool. This explains why the better I understood Clojure, the more my Javascript started to look lispy.
nine_k 10y ago
They were in an uncomfortable position. They had to add scripting capabilities, and be first at it (else MS would be the first). They had to make the language instantly understandable by an average programmer — that is, someone who has a Basic / Pascal / C / Java / Perl background, and an hour of time to get acquainted and like the language. So they created a scripting language with a familiar C-like syntax, very few restraints, and a bunch of "convenient" magic that helped a person to create a simple animation in the browser on their very first day, by mashing things together. This was a terrible strategy to create a nice language for safe and comfortable development of large applications, especially full desktop applications 20 years from the inception date. It was a very well-working strategy to get mass adoption in no time, and own the market the same year in the face of mighty competition. This is what business cared about, and this allowed Netscape to stay successful for a few more years. Alas. Now we have WebAssembly (which resembles a stripped-down JVM from 25 years ago), and soon will be able to efficiently compile our favorite "real" language to run in the browser not through JavaScript.

Whoever at Netscape vetoed Scheme as the browser language should be on trial in The Hague.

by gadtfly 10y ago

Whoever at Netscape vetoed Scheme as the browser language should be on trial in The Hague.

msvan 10y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2784453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2784453

kazinator 10y ago

The short story has it that it was some Java-pushing dickheads from Sun Microsystems.

kazinator 10y ago
You may dislike my tone, but it is basically factual. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9098367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9098367 Eich> I joined Netscape on April 4, 1995, to "do Scheme in the browser". Immediately I was out of luck on several fronts: Eich> [...] Eich> If there was to be a "scripting language", it had to look like Java. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2786720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2786720 Eich> Remember, I was recruited to "do Scheme", which felt like bait and switch in light of the Java deal brewing by the time I joined Netscape.
- LyndsySimon 10y ago
  Cool. This explains why the better I understood Clojure, the more my Javascript started to look lispy.

nine_k 10y ago

They were in an uncomfortable position. They had to add scripting capabilities, and be first at it (else MS would be the first). They had to make the language instantly understandable by an average programmer — that is, someone who has a Basic / Pascal / C / Java / Perl background, and an hour of time to get acquainted and like the language. So they created a scripting language with a familiar C-like syntax, very few restraints, and a bunch of "convenient" magic that helped a person to create a simple animation in the browser on their very first day, by mashing things together. This was a terrible strategy to create a nice language for safe and comfortable development of large applications, especially full desktop applications 20 years from the inception date. It was a very well-working strategy to get mass adoption in no time, and own the market the same year in the face of mighty competition. This is what business cared about, and this allowed Netscape to stay successful for a few more years. Alas. Now we have WebAssembly (which resembles a stripped-down JVM from 25 years ago), and soon will be able to efficiently compile our favorite "real" language to run in the browser not through JavaScript.